Managing invasive species: Rules of thumb for rapid assessment

Invasive species have been highlighted as a major driver of global environmental change and economic damages, spurring governments worldwide to increase prevention and control investments. Unfortunately, recent research is frequently in a form inaccessible to policy-makers and managers. The complexity of analysis and resulting time requirements can be prohibitive, especially given increasing numbers of invaders and potential invaders. The open challenge is to find the balance between complexity and usability. Herein we derive several general “rules of thumb” that permit rapid initial guidance while still capturing critical features of invasions. We condense ecological complexity to a relatively small number of easily understood and estimated parameters, provide general qualitative bioeconomic behavior of invasions, and present basic response surfaces that can provide guidance for prevention and control investments.